Evil Twin TheoryWednesday, April 09, 2003
Yup, The drought is still over. It has rained all week and promises to rain at least until Friday night thereby insuring that the drought will not return this spring. In related news there have been flood warnings posted for the last several days. The weather bug, which by the way is pretty good at telling temperature but not terribly good at predicting weather has been chirping steadily all week. Flood, flood, flood. Mind you I haven't actually seen any flooding beyond humongous puddles on sidewalks and parking lots and this area, despite being very close to the ocean and very flat is not, in fact, prone to flooding. Still the potential for disaster is at least marginally more exciting than the certainty that when I leave work today I'll get soaked and cold and while driving home I'll have an average of seven near death experiences ( all of which stem from the irrational tendency of bad drivers to drive worse in foul weather to compensate for the rest of us who try to drive more carefully when its raining and traffic is bad.). Whatever.
I went to the doctor today because I have had this strange little recurring patch of rash on my face and I finally got tired enough of it to go see a doctor. Really my overarching motive was to sort of ease into the whole visiting a doctor experience after not visiting a doctor for all of my adult life. This sudden desire to hang out in depressing waiting rooms and read articles in better health magazines about low fat nutria recipes is brought on by two things. First, at some point I’m going to start getting older. This pact with the devil I made for eternal youth doesn’t seem to be working out for me. For one thing I’ve failed to deliver even a single innocent soul to the dark lord. In all honesty I haven’t really tried much. I’m not much of a corruptor of innocents I guess. Secondly, I’m not even sure I had a genuine pact with the Devil. I really think all this time I assumed I wouldn’t get any older and further assumed that close ties to the underworld brought on this miraculous defiance of the aging process. Not so. None of it is true. Anyway so I went for the rash out of vanity and fear of getting older. Also I intend to submit to a complete physical with all the trimmings because an alarming number of my friends and loved ones have been sick of late. I don’t feel like writing about the details here because, well this blog is silly and real sickness while humiliating is not really all that silly. So in short this rash thing was just a work up to the real thing where I get to disrobe and cough and pee in a cup ort whatever. I had hoped technology would have eliminated all of that by now and I could just waltz into a glittery office and get scanned ala star trek, but not so. Some poor doctor is going to have to stick his or her finger up my butt. All of that for only my twenty-buck co pay. What a bargain!
In case you’re worried the doctor thinks my rash some random, but stubborn, fungus and gave me some cream that he guesses (he really seems to be just guessing) will clear it up. My complexion and my vanity thank him.
I’ve just realized I wrote all of the above without ever rising to the level of coherence or really relaying a complete narrative. Bravo for me. Maybe I’ll go do something significant tonight so I’ll be able to write about it tomorrow. Are any of my vast and growing readership up for a riveting account of my visit to Target? Did I hear a chorus of yeses out there in Blog land?
Blog land. I always wanted to live in TV land when I was younger (in my twenties) I always thought I’d like to live next to the partridge family and be able to catch that little minx Laurie during a weak moment. But enough about my post adolescent fantasies let’s talk about you. . . .
I went to the doctor today because I have had this strange little recurring patch of rash on my face and I finally got tired enough of it to go see a doctor. Really my overarching motive was to sort of ease into the whole visiting a doctor experience after not visiting a doctor for all of my adult life. This sudden desire to hang out in depressing waiting rooms and read articles in better health magazines about low fat nutria recipes is brought on by two things. First, at some point I’m going to start getting older. This pact with the devil I made for eternal youth doesn’t seem to be working out for me. For one thing I’ve failed to deliver even a single innocent soul to the dark lord. In all honesty I haven’t really tried much. I’m not much of a corruptor of innocents I guess. Secondly, I’m not even sure I had a genuine pact with the Devil. I really think all this time I assumed I wouldn’t get any older and further assumed that close ties to the underworld brought on this miraculous defiance of the aging process. Not so. None of it is true. Anyway so I went for the rash out of vanity and fear of getting older. Also I intend to submit to a complete physical with all the trimmings because an alarming number of my friends and loved ones have been sick of late. I don’t feel like writing about the details here because, well this blog is silly and real sickness while humiliating is not really all that silly. So in short this rash thing was just a work up to the real thing where I get to disrobe and cough and pee in a cup ort whatever. I had hoped technology would have eliminated all of that by now and I could just waltz into a glittery office and get scanned ala star trek, but not so. Some poor doctor is going to have to stick his or her finger up my butt. All of that for only my twenty-buck co pay. What a bargain!
In case you’re worried the doctor thinks my rash some random, but stubborn, fungus and gave me some cream that he guesses (he really seems to be just guessing) will clear it up. My complexion and my vanity thank him.
I’ve just realized I wrote all of the above without ever rising to the level of coherence or really relaying a complete narrative. Bravo for me. Maybe I’ll go do something significant tonight so I’ll be able to write about it tomorrow. Are any of my vast and growing readership up for a riveting account of my visit to Target? Did I hear a chorus of yeses out there in Blog land?
Blog land. I always wanted to live in TV land when I was younger (in my twenties) I always thought I’d like to live next to the partridge family and be able to catch that little minx Laurie during a weak moment. But enough about my post adolescent fantasies let’s talk about you. . . .
Monday, April 07, 2003
So it has been a long time since I posted here. I guess I’m pretty pathetic in the stick-to-itiveness department, but here it is a whole season and a half later and I decided to post something. The drought is over and done with. It rained all winter and most of the spring. It is raining today in fact and the weathermen and weatherwomen are currently predicting rain and cold and generally dreariness for the foreseeable future. Oh happy day.
I had to work an event all freaking Saturday so my weekend, my glorious weekend, consisted solely of Saturday night and Sunday. Lori and I went out Saturday night to a bar that featured a band we used to dance to when we were just dating (as opposed to living together). They play country and seventies dance pop. They are fun and silly. The music they play would drive me out of my gourd were I forced to listen to it in the car, but on a drunken Saturday night they are fun as all get out. (And we all know how much fun all get out can be)
Speaking of drunken, Lori got plastered for some strange reason. Usually I have to egg her on a bit but this Saturday, whether from a week of frustration or some kind of hormone imbalance I don’t know, she really tied one on. It all started with our usual pre honky-tonk ritual of a couple of shots of Stoli’s at home. Then she dug one of those little tiny bottles out of the freezer (it was belvedere vodka, I think it is chi-chi, she bought it because the bottle was pretty) and drank that on the way there. By the time we got to the bar she was driving really crappily (Note to self: monitor Lori’s drinking from now on and take over driving when it becomes necessary). It only got worse once we got inside. Lori decided to start sampling sour apple martinis. She drank three of them. We danced more or less the whole set. When the band went on break I wanted to go get some French fries at this other bar in a nearby marina. This is when it begins to get ugly, of course. Lori became convinced I was just trying to weasel out of staying late and started getting all surly with me. While we were walking down the pier to get to the French fry heaven she starts doing some kind of strange drunken power walking thing. We get in there and I eat my French fries in stony silence. (except there are a few pretentious young boat people at the second bar who keep referring to the first bar, accurately if unkindly as the ‘blue haired lounge.’) Anyway I eat the French fries (Best. French fries. Ever) and we leave the place. Now Lori gets really surly and mean. Telling me again the French fries were only an excuse for me to cut out on the all night dance marathon. Never mind I worked all day and that my legs hurt from god knows what infirmity tied with me reaching what are kindly termed the middle years. Lori wanted to dance drunkenly all night and me and the French fry cook and the ridiculously caddie shack like preppy boat people were all in cahoots trying to screw up her night of drunken reverie. Needless to say when we got to the end of the pier I turned right towards the car rather then left towards the smoky dance mecca. As you might guess this caused an argument on the way home. About a block from the house (far enough away to give a dramatic effect yet not so far as to make it an unpleasantly long walk) I demanded that she let me out. She wouldn’t so I opened the door and she stopped the car. I started walking and she started pacing me in the car yelling at me to get back in. So I did. Then she weaves and winds her way that half block home and when I get out she tears away burning rubber and causing her very soccer momish station wagon to fish tail a bit. Very dramatic. Needless to say I left too so I wouldn’t be the one waiting up and worrying. In the painful morning light she claimed to have only went around the block where as I stayed out till three in the AM just to piss her off. I win in two ways. First, she was the drunken idiot and second I stayed out longer.
Lest you get the idea that the two of us are a couple of brawling, codependent alkies, situations like the one I just described (drinking to excess and fighting) are relatively rare at the mi casa. We do still have some wild oats to sow but usually we manage it with peacefully and good-natured dignity. It’s just that sometimes all the oppressively civilized modernity gets to be too much and we revert to the hard living model our impoverished forebears endured. We are normally very conservative, considerate of each other’s moods and states, and quite capable of behaving ourselves in public. I swear.
On to other things. On Sunday it was sunny but a bit chilly. Since Lori and I were still a bit miffed at each other (I think she was embarrassed more then anything and I avoided her in case she was still in a fighting mood – I was all done fighting) I worked outside all day. I got the strawberries planted in my fantastically impressive strawberry pyramid. I watered, mowed, weeded, rototilled transplanted and potted all day long. Why did I never work as a landscape person when I was going through school? I like messing around in the dirt so much now. I really could have enjoyed my labor then. Instead I spent all those years in a crappy freaking grocery store. What an incredible waste.
I am going to try and have a cutting garden this year. I got about 10 varieties of flowers seeds reputed to be good for this area and for cutting (mostly zinnias but a few daisies and other thingies too) I am keeping my fingers crossed maybe it will all work out.
Well this is long and I have a staff meeting shortly so I better start thinking up clever and provocative comments to make when it comes to be my turn to talk
This has been fun.
I had to work an event all freaking Saturday so my weekend, my glorious weekend, consisted solely of Saturday night and Sunday. Lori and I went out Saturday night to a bar that featured a band we used to dance to when we were just dating (as opposed to living together). They play country and seventies dance pop. They are fun and silly. The music they play would drive me out of my gourd were I forced to listen to it in the car, but on a drunken Saturday night they are fun as all get out. (And we all know how much fun all get out can be)
Speaking of drunken, Lori got plastered for some strange reason. Usually I have to egg her on a bit but this Saturday, whether from a week of frustration or some kind of hormone imbalance I don’t know, she really tied one on. It all started with our usual pre honky-tonk ritual of a couple of shots of Stoli’s at home. Then she dug one of those little tiny bottles out of the freezer (it was belvedere vodka, I think it is chi-chi, she bought it because the bottle was pretty) and drank that on the way there. By the time we got to the bar she was driving really crappily (Note to self: monitor Lori’s drinking from now on and take over driving when it becomes necessary). It only got worse once we got inside. Lori decided to start sampling sour apple martinis. She drank three of them. We danced more or less the whole set. When the band went on break I wanted to go get some French fries at this other bar in a nearby marina. This is when it begins to get ugly, of course. Lori became convinced I was just trying to weasel out of staying late and started getting all surly with me. While we were walking down the pier to get to the French fry heaven she starts doing some kind of strange drunken power walking thing. We get in there and I eat my French fries in stony silence. (except there are a few pretentious young boat people at the second bar who keep referring to the first bar, accurately if unkindly as the ‘blue haired lounge.’) Anyway I eat the French fries (Best. French fries. Ever) and we leave the place. Now Lori gets really surly and mean. Telling me again the French fries were only an excuse for me to cut out on the all night dance marathon. Never mind I worked all day and that my legs hurt from god knows what infirmity tied with me reaching what are kindly termed the middle years. Lori wanted to dance drunkenly all night and me and the French fry cook and the ridiculously caddie shack like preppy boat people were all in cahoots trying to screw up her night of drunken reverie. Needless to say when we got to the end of the pier I turned right towards the car rather then left towards the smoky dance mecca. As you might guess this caused an argument on the way home. About a block from the house (far enough away to give a dramatic effect yet not so far as to make it an unpleasantly long walk) I demanded that she let me out. She wouldn’t so I opened the door and she stopped the car. I started walking and she started pacing me in the car yelling at me to get back in. So I did. Then she weaves and winds her way that half block home and when I get out she tears away burning rubber and causing her very soccer momish station wagon to fish tail a bit. Very dramatic. Needless to say I left too so I wouldn’t be the one waiting up and worrying. In the painful morning light she claimed to have only went around the block where as I stayed out till three in the AM just to piss her off. I win in two ways. First, she was the drunken idiot and second I stayed out longer.
Lest you get the idea that the two of us are a couple of brawling, codependent alkies, situations like the one I just described (drinking to excess and fighting) are relatively rare at the mi casa. We do still have some wild oats to sow but usually we manage it with peacefully and good-natured dignity. It’s just that sometimes all the oppressively civilized modernity gets to be too much and we revert to the hard living model our impoverished forebears endured. We are normally very conservative, considerate of each other’s moods and states, and quite capable of behaving ourselves in public. I swear.
On to other things. On Sunday it was sunny but a bit chilly. Since Lori and I were still a bit miffed at each other (I think she was embarrassed more then anything and I avoided her in case she was still in a fighting mood – I was all done fighting) I worked outside all day. I got the strawberries planted in my fantastically impressive strawberry pyramid. I watered, mowed, weeded, rototilled transplanted and potted all day long. Why did I never work as a landscape person when I was going through school? I like messing around in the dirt so much now. I really could have enjoyed my labor then. Instead I spent all those years in a crappy freaking grocery store. What an incredible waste.
I am going to try and have a cutting garden this year. I got about 10 varieties of flowers seeds reputed to be good for this area and for cutting (mostly zinnias but a few daisies and other thingies too) I am keeping my fingers crossed maybe it will all work out.
Well this is long and I have a staff meeting shortly so I better start thinking up clever and provocative comments to make when it comes to be my turn to talk
This has been fun.
